In the future when the first astronauts Mars and establish a human colony on the Red Planet, may obtain water from the huge glaciers that existed under its surface. This is clear from the dramatic discovery that has just published a team of U.S. scientists in the journal Science.
Probe Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of NASA has detected glaciers covering an area of tens of thousands of square miles and stretching from the mountains Martian with a thickness in some cases of about 800 meters.
"This is a very important discovery because it not only established the existence of water on Mars but covers the necessity of the liquid element that will have future interplanetary missions," says Ali Safaeinili, scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL ) Of NASA.
"The finding is also important because the water of these glaciers are located in low latitudes of the planet, away from the poles, and in some cases to only about three meters deep," he said.
Because the water is one of the essential ingredients for life as we know it on Earth, the existence of large reserves of frozen liquid is an encouraging sign for scientists looking for life beyond our planet, according says the study published by 'Science'.
The first signs of water on Mars were detected four years ago by the vehicles' Spirit 'and' Opportunity 'and confirmed later by the' Phoenix ', a third vehicle for NASA.
"Without doubt these glaciers represent the largest pool of water on Mars in non-polar regions. Only one of those before us is three times more extensive than the city of Los Angeles (California) ... and there are many more," indicates John Holt, of the School of Geosciences, University of Texas and author of the report.
In addition"are a window into an environment that was very different from what is now Mars," adds Holt.
Testing multiple
The discovery made by the radar of the probe MRO cleared a mystery that had emerged in the 1970s when NASA's Viking probes detected that came rolling foothills of the mountains. One theory suggested that it was rock flows lubricated by the ice. However, Holt said it resembled much of the huge glaciers also detected under a rock in Antarctica and for the study of which had been used radar.
"And on Earth, these masses of ice hidden in Antarctica preserve the record of ancient organisms and the history of past climate," said James Head, scientist at Brown University.
Solving the puzzle was provided by the radar of the probe from NASA, which indicated that these configurations topographical contain enormous quantities of ice.
According to the report of 'Science', the evidence of the presence of frozen water are many. The radar echoes received by the orbiter pass through the material and bounce back from a deep inner surface without a significant loss of strength, as where there is water with a relatively thin layer that covers them.
Moreover, the speed of radio waves passing through the layer is tuned to a composition of frozen water, said the report.
Glaciers in the study which focused on are located in the region of the Hellas Basin in the Martian southern hemisphere, but the radar also detected similar formations in the northern hemisphere.
"There is an even greater volume of frozen water in the reservoirs in the north," said Jeffrey Plaut, JPL scientist.
Holt explained that the presence of glaciers in low latitudes in both hemispheres could be explained by a change that has suffered at some point the rotational axis of Mars, which pushed water from the poles to those places.
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